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Outsourced truck drivers contracted to perform work for the Australian multinational company Boral have been on an indefinite strike since June 25 in Dangjin in South Korea’s South Chungcheong province.

Boral specialises in the supply of building materials. Its headquarters are in Sydney and it employs more than 15,000 people in Australia, the United States and across Asia.

In the aftermath of the April 24 Rana Plaza collapse, the plight of Bangladeshi garment workers occupied global media attention in a way it never had before.

The inconvenient thing about Rana Plaza, as far as the fashion brands that rely on outsourced sweatshop labour were concerned, was that so many workers — more than 1100 — died in one spectacular incident.

“Both Liberal and Labor governments have squandered the fruits of the mining boom,” said Peter Boyle, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Sydney, in response to the Rudd government's August 2 economic statement.

“And the only real solution lies in reversing the tax cuts given to the rich by the Howard and Gillard-Rudd governments and by nationalising the mines, banks and energy companies and put them under the democratic control of the community.

For the second time in six months, Tunisia's government has been thrown into chaos after the killing of a left-wing leader. Mohamed Brahmi, a leader of Tunisia's Popular Front, was assassinated on July 25.

Brahmi was attacked by two men on motorbike outside his home in Ariana, a suburb of Tunis, and was shot 11 times. He was taken to Mahmoud Matri Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

His widow M'barka told radio station Mosaique FM: “He died as a martyr to his opinion and position”, Tunisia Live said. She added that “he was killed by a terrorist gang”.

Former Brazilian president Lula, who helped found the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) and governed from 2003–2010, took his time to comment on the wave of protests that erupted in mid-June, bringing millions onto the streets.

But when he finally gave an interview, he warmly welcomed the protests: “Brazil is living an extraordinary moment in the affirmation of its democracy. We are a very young democracy ... It’s only to be expected that our society should be a walking metamorphosis, changing itself at every moment.”

Fearing state repression, farmers in the Cataumbo region of Colombia, on the border with Venezuela, have formally requested asylum in Venezuela.

Farmers in the Rural Workers’ Association of Catatumbo (Ascamcat) erleased a public letter on June 21 asking Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for refuge. They have been protesting and blocking roads since June 10 in response to a campaign to forcefully eradicate coca cultivation in their area. They say they fear military reprisals.

The Barack Obama administration has proposed new regulations for hydraulic fracturing on 756 million acres of public and tribal lands.

The rules were written by the drilling industry and will be streamlined into effect by a new intergovernmental task force, established by the president, to promote fracking ? a practice that has been linked to water poisoning, air pollution, methane emissions and, most recently, earthquakes.

A forum at the University of Wollongong on August 1 called "Trouble in the Edufactory: The Sydney Uni Strike and the Struggle for the University" heard from Sydney university PhD student and casual academic staff member Mark Gawne.

Gawne, a graduate of the University of Wollongong, described this year's series of strikes at Sydney as the product of years of dissatisfaction among staff and students over increasing cutbacks.

It was a powerful moment of solidarity as more than 200 Green Left Weekly supporters who had filled Balmain Town Hall for this publication's annual Sydney fundraising dinner held up Bradley Manning masks.

Looking down from the stage it was an amazing sight. The guests at the dinner included tables of freedom fighters from all around the world: from Latin America to Asia.

In recent years, there has been the emergence of a career path in the Labor Party that runs from the union movement to political office. Then, after office, to lobbyist and company director.

Of the 23 key lobbyists in the five mainland states in 2010, 17 had connections to the Labor Party. In a reflection of cross-party unity in NSW, 134 of the 272 officially registered individual lobbyists are former MPs or ministerial staffers.

US military lead prosecutor Major Ashden Fein summed up his case against Bradley Manning for "aiding the enemy" with these chilling words: "He was not a troubled young soul. He was a determined soldier with the knowledge, ability and desire to harm the United States in its war effort.

"Your honor, he was not a whistleblower, he was traitor."

We totally disagree.

Manning witnessed a terrible crime and he reported it to the people of the world using the most effective available news medium — WikiLeaks.

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